Reflection of my STFC placement

I went to the office today after 9-month of working from home - feeling nostalgic when I was walking pass the hallway in Daresbury Lab. Loads of ups and downs this year, but I definitely grow like A LOT during this placement.

No longer anxious

I remember when I first started I was extremely anxious on loads of things, most of which are quite reasonable. E.g. I need to find something that I am good at, I need to prove myself etc. I remember we have this bi-weekly update meeting and there was one time I just told my supervisor that I would just skip the meeting that week because I didn’t have any result updates etc (bc of conference/ PhD app I think), which show just how anxious I was when I first started.

Now that I have find a place in the world and also I have better mentality/ more mature in thinking etc - I am more confident and less anxious in general. It’s not the typical confidence that I can now be confident bc I know sth (aka cocky) - it’s more like I want to focus the energy on the curiosity bit instead. E.g. I don’t want to feel anxious worrying that I am stupid bc I don’t know anything - but instead I want to focus on OK I don’t know this but it’s interesting and let’s try to learn sth useful from other people etc.

Decision making

I am reading this book called Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish recently and it is really really good. I am at a point where I need to make lots of important decisions (mostly MPhil plan/ PhD plan). Ie Where I want to go (Industry or academia?). Which field I want to go (AI? Drug discovery? MD? GPCR? AMR?). What are the gaps in my skills? I also think I have to be strategic about this because I am not very smart (which is true) so is it worth going to a field that is very competitive (e.g. ML/AI), or maybe we should do some strategic planning and pick a less competitive field that I can become very good at and can still make a impact. Or am I just self-limiting myself?

I would say I don’t have all the answer to this atm which is OK. Decision making is HARD - Good decision can lead to bad outcome sometimes, and vice versa. There is also gap in the information. And predicting the future trend is extremely hard anyway. There are always conflicting advices as well etc (which might be the case that both are quite valid).

For now I think I need to identify the information that I need (and sometimes it’s only possible to get the information in the future), so I think being comfortable with Not making a decision now is a core skill that I need to have (otherwise I usually just burn all the attention to try to figure out which choice is better, when a more decent decision/ much easier decision can be made in a few weeks’ time when there’s new information available etc). It’s similar idea to risk tolerance, where I think I need to learn to be comfortable with uncertainty/ not knowing the answer rn etc.

It’s also very important not to be trapped in black and white thinking. Try to be creative and don’t get stuck by needing to make a binary choice etc. Final thing is it is OK if things don’t go according to plan. It is OK if you disappoint people along the way etc bc a better option come up etc.

If only I can start this year again?

I would still make the same choices, good or bad. I recently read a very powerful quote which resonate with me very well - it goes sth like this (my own words from translation from chinese) “Don’t go very hard on yourself. If you can go back in time relive the moment again, given your maturity (心智) at that moment you would likely to make the exact same choice/ do the exact same thing etc.” and then maybe let’s merge with this quote (again from my own words) “Don’t be sad because it’s gone, smile because it happened”.

Let’s not be sad about things in the past, and let’s not get tortured from embarrassed things in the past (still got PTSD from the BSG talk sometimes). All are good experiences/ stepping stones and let’s regret anything cause I would make the same choice anyway give my maturity (心智) at that moment.

Let’s get excited about future possibility instead!